Dark Ends

by Clayton Snyder

  He replied with a hitch of his brow and leaned back against the low wall that formed the railing of the roof.

  “Once upon a time,” he said, “a sailor fell in love with a slave girl. The sailor was from somewhere off the charted maps, far to the north where men and women had hair the color of coins, gold and copper. The girl was as poor as the dirt of the island on which she’d been born. She served a harsh but important master, the commander of a regiment of soldiers. He was an unkind man who fell into bad tempers when he drank, but he kept her fed and she had no way of knowing that she deserved more, because this life was all she’d ever had.

  “But the sailor knew. His ship was dry-docked in the harbor all winter, the crew guests of the commander’s regiment. The commander gave them rooms in the fort in exchange for providing extra defense. The sailor had a lot of time to observe the commander’s woman. He saw how she cringed when the commander raised his voice, and he saw how whenever she was near him, she folded in on herself. And he saw, too, that when she walked in the garden, she opened up like a flower.

  “The sailor started taking odd jobs around town. He already had some money saved up, but he worked hard to make more. And just before his ship was due to sail, he approached the commander.

  I want to buy your woman, he said. The one who braids the purple orchids in her hair and walks in the garden. I know you have other women, dressed in silk from Saien and gold from Dakkar. But this woman, you clad only in linen and wool. Surely you can let her go.

  “The commander looked at the bag of money the sailor held out to him. Then he laughed and knocked it out of the sailor’s hands.

  You think a fish gutter like you could afford any of my women, even the lowliest?

  I think she’s worth more than I could ever give, the sailor said. And I know she’s worth more than you, too.

  “That’s a good way to get yourself a beating, isn’t it?” I said. “Why didn’t he drop to his knees and beg?”

  “I doubt that would have made a difference,” Frost replied. “The commander was the kind of man who only wants something when he knows another man wants it. The woman was like a trophy to him.”

  “What did the sailor do?”

  “He did what you’d expect.”

  “He went back to his ship and wondered forever how things would have turned out, even after he got married and had a family?”

  Stefan gave me an odd look. “What kind of woman are you?”

  I took another bite of apple. “A realistic one.”

  “He came back that night and stole her away. Snuck her onto his ship and they sailed in the morning.”

  “Good planning,” I allowed. “But what about the commander’s guards? How did one common sailor evade all those guards? Are you sure you have all the details right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have all the details right. They snuck past the guards with the help of an herbalist, who concocted them a potion that put the guards to sleep.”

  “Kacin perhaps?”

  Stefan shrugged. “The important part is they snuck past the guards and onto the boat, and she sailed away, free.”

  “Except she didn’t escape on her own. Another man rescued her,” I pointed out. “Did she feel the same way about him as he felt about her, or was she simply doing what she had always done? Was she just a survivor?”

  For a moment, Stefan looked troubled. He turned his head and stared out over the building block city. The wind caught his short hair and ran its hand through it, mussing it up, giving me a good view of the scarred side of his face.

  He would have been handsome before his beating, I thought. Not perfect, like the statues that lined the drive to the Eterean palace, but perfection was so bland, so suspicious. It was difficult to reconstruct what he might have looked like before Granthus’s soldiers had destroyed his bone structure, but I thought I could see the lines of it, strong and spare, like the mountains beyond the city gates.

  “Perhaps at first,” he said. “Perhaps she went with the sailor because she couldn’t stand to stay with the commander. But after she spent time with the sailor, I believe she came to love him.”

  Something about the way he spoke caught me. “Is this a story?” I said. “Really?”

  “Of course it’s a story. A fairy story. You said so yourself.”

  “Did they live happily ever after? Then I’ll know it’s a story.”

  “You don’t think anyone lives happily ever after outside a story?”

  “Honestly? There’s not a lot of evidence for it. But go on.”

  “Well, the sailor and the slave girl lived on ship for a while. The ship took them around the world. Eterea, Dakkar, Tiresia, Kavo, Qalfa… even Saien. The slave girl saw wonders she never knew existed. But the farther she traveled, the more homesick she grew. And as she journeyed farther and farther away from the commander, a desire grew in her, a desire to have a family.

  “Her baby was born in a storm off Thunder Cape. The boat tossed to and fro, and her screams were drowned in the sound of the storm. But when it was all done, mother and son were both healthy. Only, the mother was done with sea travel. Take me home, she begged her sailor husband. Please. I want to see the mountains again. I want to feel land beneath my feet. I want to raise my son where grass grows green and flowers sprout from the clefts in the rock.”

  “You know we can’t go back, the sailor said. The commander may still be looking for you.”

  “Why would I want to go back to the garrison? she said. I want to go home, back to the hills.”

  “So, because the sailor loved her, he gave up the sea. They retreated into the high mountains, since they couldn’t live among the people of the coast for fear of being captured. But the mountains were harsh, watered by springs of magic, full of dragons and other monsters, and the land was shit for farming.”

  I wrapped the apple carefully in my handkerchief and stuffed it in my pocket. “I told you I didn’t believe in happily ever after. Either they starved to death, or the commander caught her.”

  “You did. And yes, the commander found them out.”

  “Did he take her back?”

  “Not exactly. Her husband died, securing her freedom, and she lived on her own for a while, bringing up her boy. They had no money and were forced to live among the hazards of the magic springs. When the boy got older, he got it in his head that the commander was the one keeping his mother hungry and in pain, worn out with work. And so, the boy went down into the city.”

  “And what happened with him?”

  “He was beaten, thrown out, left for dead.”

  “But he survived.”

  “He did. Only because they took him back up to the mountains and dumped his body before his mother.”

  “So, she saved him? Nursed him back to health?”

  “No. She thought her boy had died because of her, just like her husband, and she killed herself.”

  The brutal spare way he said the words made me pay attention. It was like watching him put his hood down.

  He began speaking again without looking at me. “When the boy woke up and saw his mother, dead, he wished he had died. He wanted to die. But something inside stopped him. He couldn’t get up, but he was very hungry. The only thing he found to eat was a dead dragon—a small one, just created—by the side of a spring where he crawled to drink.”

  “He ate the dragon?”

  “He was driven to survive. Like any other animal.”

  “But… an animal’s only in it for itself,” I said. “The boy could see what pain his mother had been in when she thought he was dead. He wasn’t motivated by his drive to survive at all. It was the drive to take care of things. Things that had been left undone and needed doing, not for himself but in love of another. In his mother’s memory.”

  The wind rippled the hood of my cloak and scruffled through the trees that leaned over the roof.

  Frost put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it lightly. I looked up at him, startled, befor
e I realized that it was a companionable gesture, given for comfort. It had been a long time since anyone had reached out to me like that.

  When I began caring for my father, it used up so much of my time and vitality I had none left for interacting with anyone else. Half the people we knew escaped the island when they realized where Granthus’s policies were headed, and the other half drifted away because I didn’t have time to sit in the cafes and argue philosophy like I used to.

  Fair-weather friends, my father used to call them.

  But Stefan’s touch on my shoulder told me he understood. There was such a thing as a drive to care. No matter what the cost.

  Maybe sometimes it felt like a drive to obligation—like being crushed in a room that was slowly closing up on you like a tomb. But it kept you going when you thought you couldn’t go on. It was not as simple as repaying love given to you. It was not the happily ever after of a fairy story.

  It was love, though. A mess of complications, of chains and freedom, laughter and tears, anger and hope. Revenge and maybe redemption.

  My father sitting on his cot while the girl I had paid with a stolen turnip spooned a thin vegetable broth into his mouth.

  I needed to get back to him.

  Stefan dropped his hand.

  “Will you come with me?” he said. “I’m gathering people. To solve the problem of the dragons.”

  “You know how to keep them away?”

  He exhaled, then leaned on the wall, looking into the distance toward the sea where the dragon lay, a swarm of gulls picking at its flesh.

  “The problem isn’t the dragons, it’s what Granthus is doing to keep them away.”

  “So, what’s the solution then?”

  “That’s easy. Get rid of Granthus.”

  “I can’t be involved in sedition,” I said as I clattered back down the stairs. Stefan followed me, his boots thumping heavily on the buckled wooden boards.

  “Why not?”

  I whirled around to face him. “Because of my father, dammit! Where am I going to put him? Who will care for him? I don’t have time to foment a rebellion!”

  “Bring him. We’ll care for him.”

  “We? You’ve got a whole village of Seditionists?”

  “Something like that. In the hills.”

  “You’re putting an awful lot of trust in a woman you just met, telling me that.”

  “But I know who you are.”

  “That’s blackmail, holding my father’s safety over me like an axe!”

  He scowled. The expression turned his face into something dark and ominous, even dangerous, but then his anger lifted. “I’m not going to threaten your father, Peri. I meant, I know you, I know your background, and I know you’re not the kind of person who would put your father at risk. And more importantly, you just keep going. You have that drive, whatever it is. Peranza the Steadfast.”

  I shoved open the door to the small room, where all the food was still set on the table. “You don’t need me, Stefan. You need someone who can wield a blade, or Shape, or See.”

  “We need an herbalist.”

  “Oh,” I said, wondering why I sounded so bitter. “So, you did need my father.”

  My bag sat on the floor beside the table. I bent down so Frost wouldn’t see the tears forming in the corners of my eyes and picked it up, then began putting the food into it as carefully as I could with my hands shaking.

  “You need to eat more of that,” he said.

  “Maybe when I get home.”

  “If you never feed yourself, who’ll take care of your father?”

  “I said, I’ll eat when I get home!”

  Stefan took a step back. “It’s your choice, Peri.”

  “It’s not a choice!” I said, stepping closer to him, like I was pressing an attack. The gold in his eyes crackled like sparks, and I realized what I was doing and took a deep breath. “It’s never a choice,” I said in a quieter, bleaker voice. “Not for the steadfast.” I picked up my bag and headed for the door.

  Stefan grabbed me by the shoulder. “Peri,” he said. “The meat. That’s for you.”

  I jerked away from him. “We’ll see.”

  I didn’t want to do it, but Stefan didn’t seem like a man who would take no for an answer. And I didn’t want him following me around anymore. Somebody would notice, and then they would come for my father. They would drag him back to the Governor’s Offices and use Truthseers to pry all his knowledge out of him, and then Granthus would turn it against all of us—poisons and potions in the prisons, herbs to increase the magical attraction of dragon sacrifices, torture, manipulation. They would leave him an empty husk and then throw him away as if he were chaff beaten from wheat.

  I had again paid Yula to stay with Papa, and again, her man the copyist at the Office of Sedition had come to visit her. I could hear their conversation and laughter through the door. I wasn’t surprised—it was the only way the two of them got any privacy, even if it was relative—but today it was a stroke of luck.

  Not that it felt lucky. Instead, I felt oily inside, as if maybe even my thoughts had left stains. But I went through with my plans anyway.

  “Bero,” I said as I stepped into the room and unwound my scarf, hoping I remembered his name right. “I want to report a man for sedition.”

  Yula and Bero had dragged the one chair as far away from my father as they could get. Yula was sitting in her man’s lap, and he had the bodice of her tunic half-unlaced. It looked as if Papa was asleep, but it made me angry to see them taking advantage of the situation like this. When the copyist heard what I said, though, he stopped in surprise, then set Yula on her feet and stood up.

  “You’ve run into a Seditionist?” he said in surprise.

  I nodded. “I’d like to report him. Will you get a bonus for bringing him to justice?”

  “Yes!” Bero said. He scrabbled through the mess of paper on the table, finally coming up with a blank scrap, quill, and ink. “I’ll take your writ right here,” he said. “Can you give me a name? Or just a description?”

  For an instant, I panicked. I thought about Stefan standing on the rooftop with the wind ruffling his strange spiky white hair, showing me the ruined side of his face like an offering of trust. I wondered at what point in the afternoon he had ceased to be Frost and had instead become Stefan.

  But I couldn’t afford to risk my father, no matter what my own views or desires might be. It made me feel hollow inside, and somehow smaller, to do it, but I gathered my resolution and ground out the words.

  “Stefan Frost.”

  Yula’s man looked up at me in amazement, quill still poised over the paper. “He’s wanted by Granthus himself. By the Guard.”

  Damn. Now I did balk. Considering the reaction of the acolyte at the temple, I should have known that Frost wasn’t a small time political agitator. I wanted to hassle him, not condemn him to the executioner’s block. Or worse, to the arena to fight off monsters to prove his innocence. Surely my responsibility to my father didn’t mean I had to condemn another man to death?

  I stuttered. “I only heard a rumor. That he might be in the Temple District. It’s just hearsay, but I thought I ought to say something.”

  Bero was nodding as he wrote. “Yes. You’ve done the right thing.” He looked up at me when he was finished and grinned. “I imagine he has a bounty on his head. Probably over five hundred astra.”

  “Oh!” Yula exclaimed, clapping. “Maybe we could even afford a bit of mutton!”

  Bero leaped out of the chair and spun her around. Her skirts swished against the legs of the table in a blur of red and blue. “One day I’ll be able to feed you all the mutton you can eat, when we’ve gotten rid of all these damn Seditionists and the dragons.”

  “Lamb in roast garlic sauce!” Yula exclaimed, laughing. “Meat pies! Pork skewers! Figs and apricots!”

  “And only the finest of wines to dip our bread,” Bero said, planting a big kiss on her forehead. Then he hurriedly rolled u
p his paper and stuffed it in his cloak.

  “Thank you, sera,” he said to me, dragging Yula along with him as he headed for the door. “This could be my big break, maybe I’ll even gain a promotion…”

  They all but tumbled out the door. Bero slammed it behind him. I winced at the sound and turned to check on Papa.

  He was sitting up on the bed, watching me out of shadowed eyes.

  “The bread man? You saw?”

  I sat down beside Papa and began taking everything out of my bag except the meat. Stefan hadn’t told me what the meat was, but I thought I could guess.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Peri!”

  “Papa. He saved me from a dragon attack. He gave me something to eat. But he wanted something out of me that I couldn’t give. The risk was too great.”

  Peranza the Steadfast.

  I winced. My conscience had woken and now it cut into me, but I tried to tell it that this was about survival. Papa’s survival.

  “Dragon attack?” Papa said in alarm.

  “I’m fine, Papa.” I hesitated, smoothing my tunic over my lap. “Papa… your work for the governor’s office. Did it involve dragons?”

  “Governor.” His brows pulled downward, at least on the left side, but I couldn’t tell if he was angry or merely confused.

  “When you worked with Mama.”

  “Your… mother.”

  “Do you remember?”

  Papa sighed. “She always wanted more. Dragon magic.”

  “How could Mama have dragon magic? It belongs to the dragons.”

  He shook his head—or what passed for a shake of his head, a few twitches. “You assume,” he said and tapped my head with the index finger of his left hand, “Dragons. Not born.”

  “If they’re not born, then how do they exist? Are you saying somebody makes dragons, Papa?”

  “Trans—trans—transformed. Ordinary creatures. By pure magic.”

  “But how? A Fixer would still have to use magic to—”

  “No. No. Wild magic. Comes up.”

  He made a gesture with the fingers of his left hand like water spraying up out of the ground, and my own fingers, which had been pulling at a stray thread, stilled.